U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey Gets Second Term

10/12/2013

Pulitzer Prize-winning Natasha Trethewey, the new U.S. poet laureate, a signs a copy of her book Native Guard. (Photo Credit: Jalissa Gray)

Originally posted 06/22/13

Hello again, and welcome back for more As It Is.

I’m June Simms with VOA Learning English.

Today, we hear about Natasha Tretheway’s appointment to a second term as Poet Laureate of the United States. The person who holds this position is charged with raising the national consciousness to a greater appreciation of poetry.

The Library of Congress announced that it was appointing Natasha Trethewey to a second term as Poet Laureate of the United States. The Librarian of Congress praised the Mississippi’s native’s poems. He said they “dig beneath the surface of history … to explore the human struggles that we all face.”

VOA's Adam Phillips spoke with the Pulitzer Prize winning poet about her writing, her past, and her position as “the face of American poetry.”

Whenever the U.S. Poet Laureate is asked for a simple definition of a poet, she quotes the early 19th century British poet Percy Shelley. He said that “poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” Natasha Trethewey agrees.

“I think that poems legislate the world for us because they not only reckon with the past, with our history as human beings, but they also help us to envision and imagine the better worlds that we are every day working to build. Poetry can do that for us.”